Setting the priorities right Potholes and uneven roads
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Setting the priorities right is the hallmark of governance, qualified by the term good. After Manipur came under President’s Rule on February 13, 2025, it has been a sort of a mixed bag for Raj Bhavan. The call to surrender all illegal arms within a deadline set by the Government elicited positive response but the free movement from March 8 move fell flat on its face following the staunch opposition put up by the Kuki-Chin-Zo people under tutelage from the ‘powers that be’. It was a flop, no doubt, but it went a long way in exposing which side is hell bent on keeping the pot boiling and legitimises the long held views that the May 3, 2023 violence which erupted at Chura-chandpur was engineered to serve a pur- pose, a vested purpose. The Meiteis failed to read the fact that the May 3, 2023 violence was engineered to serve a larger purpose and the free movement from March 8, 2025 call exposed this. A failed endeavour but which went a long way in legitimising the widely held belief and suspicion that the May 3, 2023 violence was engineered. Till today, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum, has not bothered to answer why a rally ostensibly staged against the ruling of the High Court of Manipur should end up targeting the Meitei community at Churachandpur and Torbung on May 3. It is there on record to show that Imphal and the valley districts retaliated only late in the evening of the said day and one wonders if Raj Bhavan has got hold of this fact or not. Or more importantly has it bothered to even question why a rally against the ruling of the High Court ended targeting members of a particular community, the Meiteis in this case ? This question should have been raised against the botched free movement steps on March 8 itself and an answer to this would have answered so many things and silenced the victim story which was sold so convincingly to the pen pushers in the early days of the ongoing clash. It is this which the PR regime ought to have studied and drawn up a conclusion and the same conveyed to the people who matter in New Delhi. Apart from this, Raj Bhavan has also been found left wanting on how it has dealt with the very act of erasing/covering the word Manipur from a bus of the Manipur State Transport Department carrying reporters to cover the Shirui Lily Festival on May 20 at Gwaltabi. The inquiry panel is understood to have submitted its report to the State Government, but till today no one knows anything about the report. To the journalists who have been demanding a sort of an Action Taken Report, the silence on the report submitted has only gone to add insult to injury. On the other hand, incidents of violence or confrontations between the two communities at ‘war’ have considerably gone down and so have cases of people coming out against the excessive monetary demands served on them by different armed groups. A mixed bag it is, but the question still stands on whether the PR regime has been able to set its priorities right or is still fumbling in the dark on how to make life of the common people easier.
What is out in the open and begs the immediate attention of the Government are obviously the potholes that have come to define all the roads in Imphal today. This being the wet season, a term coined as non-working season, no one expects the Government to get into road repair mode and black top all the roads. What is at least expected is for the Government to take up some pro-active actions and see what may be done to fill up the potholes at all the major roads of Imphal. The only smooth stretch of road that comes to mind is the one from the PWD office till the BT Airport and even here cracks have started appearing at some stretches. For those who can afford to move around in chauffeured SUVs and MPVs and those who come higher in the pecking order of the Government the potholes may not jerk them around, but to the common people driving through Imphal is a nightmare. The priority should be on how to make the roads driveable, but instead what one saw was the demolition drive conducted along Tiddim line on July 12. True, encroachers need to be removed, but this should not necessarily precede the need to make the roads motorable. This is where Raj Bhavan appears to have got its priorities all mixed up.
What is out in the open and begs the immediate attention of the Government are obviously the potholes that have come to define all the roads in Imphal today. This being the wet season, a term coined as non-working season, no one expects the Government to get into road repair mode and black top all the roads. What is at least expected is for the Government to take up some pro-active actions and see what may be done to fill up the potholes at all the major roads of Imphal. The only smooth stretch of road that comes to mind is the one from the PWD office till the BT Airport and even here cracks have started appearing at some stretches. For those who can afford to move around in chauffeured SUVs and MPVs and those who come higher in the pecking order of the Government the potholes may not jerk them around, but to the common people driving through Imphal is a nightmare. The priority should be on how to make the roads driveable, but instead what one saw was the demolition drive conducted along Tiddim line on July 12. True, encroachers need to be removed, but this should not necessarily precede the need to make the roads motorable. This is where Raj Bhavan appears to have got its priorities all mixed up.